After Bondi

This past week was packed with Chanukah celebrations. We were lighting menorahs, gathering as a community, and spreading light across South Dakota. But my mind and heart were thousands of miles away, in Bondi.
There are no words to describe the horror of what took place. Sadly, there is also no surprise. Over the past two years, the Australian government neglected and failed its Jewish population.
And still, amid the darkness and tragedy, there have been moments of strength. 
Chaya Dadon is a 14-year-old girl. When the shooting began, she found a place to hide safely. But then she heard two children crying and screaming. She saw that they were exposed, out in the open, and she wanted to help them. Others who were hiding with her begged her not to leave her safe place, but she did anyway. She ran out to reach the children, and while shielding them, she was shot.
Or the two yeshiva students: 20-year-old Leibel Lazaroff of Houston (pictured above saying Shema while recovering), who was volunteering with the Jewish community in Bondi. When he saw a police officer injured, he immediately took off his shirt to use as a tourniquet, and while shielding the officer, begged him to let him use his weapon to stop the terrorist, before being shot several times himself; and Yanky Super, who is also a volunteer EMT with the local Hatzalah, who was shot while giving aid. Thank G-d, after multiple surgeries, all three are now stable and expected to recover.
We don’t know Chaya, but Mussie and I are family friends with Leibel and Yanky. We know their parents and many of their siblings personally, which makes this all hit even closer to home. Their survival is a blessing, but it also sharpens the pain of those who were not as fortunate.
Most notable among them is Rabbi Eli Schlanger, who was murdered just minutes after laying tefillin with a beachgoer, while attempting to approach the terrorist, begging him to stop. For the past 18 years, Rabbi Eli served the community in Bondi and organized this event.
When we woke up on Chanukah morning and heard of the massacre, the first death we heard about was Rabbi Eli. We were told there were more fatalities and many wounded, but no additional names had yet been released. Later in the day, just as we were about to start our Chanukah program, I checked my phone and saw that another fellow rabbi, Rabbi Yaakov Levitan, had succumbed to his wounds. Both leave behind wives and young children.
Among those killed were people who demonstrated tremendous bravery, trying to stop the terrorists. Like Boris & Sofia Gurman, a brave couple who tackled one of the attackers, not realizing there were two, and were murdered, and Reuven Morrison, who fought back by throwing bricks, refusing to freeze in fear.
As the days pass, I know there will be more stories, and the weight of it all keeps growing. There is not a day without tears for the horror, the victims and the survivors. Each morning, I open my email to notifications of funeral times for victims, ranging from an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor to the innocent 10-year-old Matilda. There are notices of shiva visits, updates on the injured, and appeals for financial support for widows and orphans. This is not the way life should look. And yet, this is the reality Jewish communities have been forced to live with, once again.
And still, even here, light breaks through.
For me, the most powerful moment came from Sorella Abrahms, speaking with a reporter. Her words are so raw and real that I am including a link and urging everyone to watch it. This is not theoretical. This is a lived experience. She shared that when her family returned home from the beach, her children begged her and her husband to turn off their menorah in their yard out of fear of becoming targets. These were children who had just witnessed their community being massacred for being Jewish. Reluctantly, they turned the menorah off.
But then, the next day, their Christian neighbor shared that her young daughter noticed the menorah was dark and began to cry, saying, “We can’t let the evil win.” They decided, come what may, they were turning that menorah back on.
The Bondi Beach Chanukah Massacre brought to mind a story I heard many years ago. The Rebbe once told someone from Australia that when a yeshiva student walks through Bondi Junction proudly wearing a yarmulke and tzitzit, even the angels in Heaven are envious.
That story always felt cryptic to me. There may be more to it that I don’t know, and the person to whom the Rebbe spoke doesn’t remember, but I could never quite understand what the angels were jealous of in Bondi. I still don’t know for sure, but now, after Jews who were proudly celebrating Yiddishkeit were murdered in cold blood, I think I may have a new understanding. Perhaps their envy speaks to what it means to be a visible Jew, to the holiness of choosing light when darkness would be easier.
And I think I know this because there is one other thing we know about angels and Jews being murdered. It is a moment we recall each year on Yom Kippur, when we read the account of the Ten Martyrs. The machzor describes how “shaking and trembling, the righteous accepted the decree upon themselves,” but the angels could not understand it. They cried out in protest before G-d, only to be told that the decree was final and there was nothing they could do.
That is the story of the Jewish people. No one really gets it. No one understands how we are still here. Even the angels don’t get it. And maybe that is what they are envious of. Jealous of those special souls who gathered on Bondi Beach this Sunday, proudly displaying their faith to light a menorah.
Throughout history, we have faced moments like this, and we are still here. That is part of the miracle of being Jewish. When you think about the fact that you or I are Jewish today, you realize how many generations of men and women had to come before us, and how many decisions our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and those before them, had to make to keep the flame burning. If even one person in that chain had cowered, had chosen silence or surrender, we might not be here today.
So in the pain, the tears, and the heartbreak, we cry out to G-d and demand that He remove this cruelty from His children. We are His children, and we have a right to ask Him to protect us. To grant healing to the wounded, and protect the widows and young orphans who will never know their fathers. But we will also not wait for G-d. In the meantime, we will do our part. We will mourn when it hurts. We will cry when we must. We will provide all the support we can. But for their sake, for the sake of those murdered and wounded, and for the sake of our children and theirs, we will move forward with even greater determination.
Their deaths will not be in vain. We will continue to live openly and proudly as Jews. And we will never, ever, allow terror or Jew-hatred to win. Together we will be strong, and together we will win. 
May their memories be a blessing.